HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



indicative of their kinship relations; the clans of one of these sister- 

 hoods address the clan or clans of the other sisterhood as "our 

 cousins". In its unmodified form each sisterhood was exogamous. 



The tribes of the League or Confederation are organized in two 

 basic organic units — in two sisterhoods of tribes — each of which is 

 constituted of two or more tribes which are correlated one with 

 another as sisters, this being the descriptive term indicative of their 

 kinship relations; the tribes of one of these sisterhoods of tribes address 

 the tribes of the other sisterhood as "our cousins''. Theoretically, if 

 not now demonstrable in fact, these tribal sisterhoods were exo- 

 gamous. 



But with regard to the clan and tribal groups, constituting the 

 trenchant dualism just described, there is a higher or ritualistic form 

 of address which is special and peculiar either to the one or to the 

 other of the two basic organic units, i.e., is peculiar to the male or 

 father group of clans or tribes, or to the female or mother group, 

 as defined in preceding paragraphs. The sisterhood of clans, or the 

 sisterhood of tribes, representing symbolically the male sex, is ad- 

 dressed as "my father's clansmen" or "our father's clansmen", be- 

 cause the side of the male sex is the father side or father clan-group, 

 or father tribe-group. Again, the sisterhood of clans, or the sisterhood 

 of tribes, representing symbolically the female sex, is addressed as 

 "my offspring" or "our offspring", because, in the fireside family, the 

 children belong to the "mother", and as this is the mother group or 

 side — the mother clan-group — it is also the "offspring" group or side; 

 but this group or side may also be addressed as "woman", as may be 

 seen in the words of the so-called "six songs". Thus, it is seen that 

 the fundamental dualism consists of the concepts — male sex or princi- 

 ple, the father, the fatherhood, in nature, on the one hand, and the 

 female sex or principle, the mother, the motherhood, in nature, on 

 the other. 



For the purpose of this paper it will be needful here to say that 

 the federal or league dualism consisted, on the father side, of the 

 Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Seneca tribes, and on the mother 

 side, of the Oneida and the Cayuga tribes, the three tribes forming a 

 sisterhood of tribes, and the two tribes forming another sisterhood of 

 tribes. These sisterhoods have also been called phratries of tribes in 

 the literature relating to these Iroquoian tribes and their League or 

 Confederation. 



In every place of public assembly there is, or at least there is 

 assumed to be, a hearth or fire-altar, some distance from either end 

 of the song-bench which occupies the central part of the room or space, 



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